


and this is how it starts

by morino



Series: [ verse ] - bend don't break (fanfiction) [1]
Category: springwave
Genre: F/M, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-01-01
Updated: 2018-01-01
Packaged: 2019-02-26 06:41:40
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,592
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13230138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/morino/pseuds/morino
Summary: The spies. They were using this against him. This was all part of the plan to destabilize him. He wondered how many of his coworkers were being made to suffer like he was, how many were making calls to wives and husbands and offspring and loved ones, reassuring them that they hadn't been forgotten.[ bend don't break (fanfiction):kyungwon/woondo, kyungwon & ryung, kyungwon & kihun, (background) kihun/jiyeon;others: changmook;tags: alternate universe - office workers, unresolved sexual tension, unrequited interest ]





	and this is how it starts

**Author's Note:**

> **other tags:** miles: literal prince charming, miles being a little shit, whispers cry me a river, there's no thirst like kyungwon thirst 
> 
> also: jongjoon cameos as a plant. (because he's always so succulent.)

The systems are down. For the whole building. No one seems to know the how or why of it.  
  
It would be far fetched to assume it was the result of espionage tactics by a rival company, hoping to steal sensitive information about their operations right from under their noses, but it's been two hours. Half the people on his floor have resorted to loitering in the gardens downstairs while they wait for technical support that can actually help to show up (Scott is bright-eyed, bushy-tailed, an absolute delight, and never makes Kyungwon feel silly for not knowing simply pressing this or that key will solve his seemingly insurmountable problems, but if the look of confusion and unbridled horror on his face when people started flooding to him for help was any indication, he definitely wasn't trained to solve hiccups of this scale), and Kyungwon's boredom is threatening to push him to tears.  
  
So yes, the idea is fantastical at best. But it's also entertaining. At the very least, it's more engaging than the game he randomly picked off the app store's recommended list and loaded onto his phone, only to find himself frustrated by how difficult and unnecessarily complex match three games have apparently become over the years.  
  
_But_ , Kyungwon imagines in the best sugary saleswoman voice his fried brain can muster, _if you pay this ridiculous amount of money, we'll give you all the tools you already should have had to help you work through all our artificial difficulty nonsense_.  
  
His eye twitches at the memory. That was twenty minutes and half a cup of coffee ago. Since then, he's accomplished a great number of things. Namely deleting the atrocious, money grubbing game off his phone and finishing what was left of his coffee. Oh, and seriously considering the possibility that the company he worked for was a massive cover up for some leg of the mafia that also happened to have political ties.  
  
Kyungwon, with fingers wrapped around the handle, brings the cup up to his nose and inspects the inside of it, traces of his beverage lining the bottom of his cup in a spotty ring.  
  
He expects to find a deep, magnetic desire for some meaningful introspection the longer he stares. Two minutes pass and the first thought that pops into his mind is:  
  
_You're not an unwitting accessory to criminal activities. Also, why are you staring at wet coffee remains like they're stars carrying a fortune for you? Why don't you get more coffee and go outside? The coffee machine's still working._  
  
He blinks.  
  
Right. The coffee machine was still working.  
  
Pushing his chair back, Kyungwon decides it would be a good idea to do something with his own advice, like listen to it. Before the coffee machine mysteriously stopped working, too.  
  
  
-  
  
  
Nothing has been fixed by the time he's stirring another steaming hot cup of coffee.  
  
It was foolish of him to hope for that to be the case, he knows, but it's not difficult to be an optimist when the alternative is thinking about how much time has been lost and the avalanche of work he'll have to attend to whenever this nightmare is over.  
  
He won't be home for a while. By this point, even if a team does show up and get everything fixed, that just means he'll voluntarily stay late to make sure tomorrow doesn't meet him with twice the workload, and that meant breaking the commitments he'd made tonight. 

Like helping Kihun him out of his post-breakup funk with movies and microwave popcorn and a go around the my-ex-was-secretly-a-terrible-person-and-here's-why tree.

Even with her choosing a _phone call_ as the best way to abruptly end a long-term relationship, they both know Jiyeon is a saint wrapped in angelic light and gifted to Kihun from the heavens and probably only called because she couldn't handle having to face him while saying goodbye. But for the sake of their impending sob fest, nobody—especially not people named Jo Jiyeon—was perfect.

Kyungwon frowned to himself, guilt-ridden. Kihun would have a much harder time lying to himself on his own.  
  
When he gets to his desk, he'll shoot Kihun a message. Apologize, try and push their meeting back to a later date. Postpone Kihun's emotional well-being. And maybe it's not entirely his fault, but Kyungwon still allows himself to feel like a horrible human being. What kind of friend _doesn't_ move the mountains and part the seas for their friends? The shitty kind, that's who. Why hadn't he thought of this sooner? Why wasn't this his very first thought all those hours ago?  
  
He can already see Kihun's mother shaking her head, can paint the picture of just how deeply the disappointment runs in the soft grooves bracketing her mouth.

When first Kyungwon promised to look after her son, he was young and running high on the feeling of _saving a life_ ; Kihun sported nothing more than two minimally scraped knees after taking a tumble from his bike, but he didn't complain when Kyungwon scooped him up and asked, panicked, which house on the street was his.  
  
When Kyungwon delivered him from the clutches of nowhere near death, chin up and chest puffed as he heaved, Kihun's mother opened the gates of her home and invited him in for jelly and ice cream. 'Anything else for my brave little protector?' she cooed as he devoured the portion in his bowl, laughing merrily at the blush it threw onto Kyungwon's cheeks. She had looked so proud of him then.  
  
What would she think of him now? How much abhorrence could her eyes hold for him when he showed up at her door with her son in his arms, ashen, heartbroken, and poorly mended?  
  
How had so much of his life fallen apart so quickly?  
  
The spies. They were using this against him. This was all part of the plan to destabilize him. He wondered how many of his coworkers were being made to suffer like he was, how many were making calls to wives and husbands and offspring and loved ones, reassuring them that they hadn't been forgotten. That it was a _one time thing_ , and that they promised to make it up to them later.  
  
How many relationships hadn't been able to either the storm? How many homes had been broken in the hours they've been chained to this place, desperately waiting for any kind of sign that their old normal would return? Would they be kind enough to give it back when this was over, allow them to slot into the only place they had left?  
  
Kyungwon had left so much behind. Kihun. His parents and his little sister back home. JJ, the potted cactus in his apartment. Oh god. How was _he_ dealing with—  
  
"Yoo," a voice called out to him, pulling Kyungwon free from one pit of despair only to unceremoniously drop him into another, more familiar pit for him to waste away in.  
  
"Hey," the voice continued, framed by a soft, amiable smile. From an impossibly perfect face. With its arm draped over the divider of his desk. And those thighs pressed together, leading Kyungwon's eyes down miles of leg that crossed at ankles he's never had the pleasure of seeing bare.  
  
His steps falter. One foot lands behind the other and scraps the back of his shoe. He's wearing his cute socks today, the ones with the doodled animal print that Ryung had gotten him as a joke three Christmases ago. Kyungwon is unironically in love with them. Ryung has gifted him more since, but this pair - with its detective puppies donning silly detective hats, smoking pipes, and modeling monocles - is by far his favorite.  
  
If his shoe comes off, Woondo will see them. Woondo cannot, under any circumstances, see the most adorable pair of socks in his collection.  
  
Milliseconds, individual frames of reality, start to pass at the same speed centuries do. Kyungwon is trying to get his foot off his shoe, just as the other tries to get off the ground. He doesn't lose his footing completely, thank god, but it's a struggle to get both feet properly on the ground before that can happen and in his haste, he jumbles up the order of operations.  
  
It's rather simple when everything isn't slowed down: Kyungwon stumbles over his own two feet, catches himself before he falls, and very nearly trips again.  
  
His coffee does not stay seated as he enters turbulence. Kyungwon hisses in surprise and mild agony as it splashes out of his tilted mug and onto the floor. And his thigh.  
  
  
-  
  
  
"Are you okay?" Woondo probes as he jogs the three steps it takes to meet in the middle. The man is valiantly fighting back his laughter, but Kyungwon can hear his amusement clear as day in the lilt of his voice.  
  
Kyungwon tries his hardest to ignore how much the sight of Woondo on one knee, clinically examining the stain on his trousers before pulling out a pristine square of cloth from inside his suit jacket to dab futilely at it, makes his stomach flip.  
  
  
-  
  
  
(He's not sure he's okay. His heart is doing its best to impersonate a hyperactive squirrel.  
  
The comparison is the kind Ryung would make. Followed closely by a smug smile. "Be careful where you nut this mating season. His shirts look expensive and meticulously ironed," he would coo with his back turned, walking away. Abandoning Kyungwon to deal with this very serious problem on his own.  
  
And Kyungwon would _hate it._ Because it's far too close to the truth of what he wanted where Woondo was concerned and he was a disgusting example of a son, an older brother. What would his parents think of him now? Their bright, precious son whose greatest dream was having his coworker balls deep inside of him.  
  
Not that his mother would mind _too_ much. ' _As long as you keep the nutting away from the dining table_ ,' she would call from the kitchen during the holidays when Kyungwon brings Woondo home for the first time.  
  
He kind of wants that more than the sex. No, that wasn't accurate. He wanted that _and_ the sex. Holding hands under the table during dinner and his father's thinly veiled 'what do you intended to do with my son' interrogation, helping his mother with the dishes and flicking soap suds at each other when they thought no one was looking; furiously rutting on his childhood bed the next morning as Woondo taped over Kyungwon's mouth with one large hand because his sister's room was two doors down and Kyung always had trouble keeping down his appreciation when Woondo gave him everything he wanted.  
  
Like Woondo would even know what he wanted when they spent so little time together, he can hear Ryung pointing out from the shadows he disappeared into. Like Woondo would actually marry him considering how few words Kyungwon says to him on a weekly basis.  
  
There was one coincidental run-in at the bakery with the life-changing pastries and rotten customer service (Kyung spends too much time mentally preparing himself before setting a foot in that place, and it's too draining to do more than once every month or so), where Woondo looked as beautiful as he always did with his face illuminated by the soft light lining the floor of the display case near the register. Outside of that one exchange of quiet greetings and pastry recommendations, Kyungwon has not spoken to Kwon Woondo outside of the office or social engagements with some of their coworkers in tow. Not once.  
  
The number of times he's woken up from particularly vivid dreams about Woondo's tongue savoring the taste of some part of his body was significantly higher than just one time.  
  
The gatekeeper—a demon who, at this point in his life, Kyungwon would bet a lot of money on having a striking resemblance to Ryung—is not going to be kind to him when they assign him to his floor of hell.)  
  
  
-  
  
  
As it turns out, Kyungwon is not okay. He thinks he might be going a bit crazy.  
  
Woondo is standing on the other side of the door, handsomely leaning against a wall the last time Kyung saw him, while Kyungwon furiously tries to rub out the stain on his trousers with a damp square of cloth that is not his.  
  
He cannot tell if he's helping or making it worse; there's a slightly larger, dampish shape forming around the initial problem area. The scrubbing motion of his hand keeps his mind in the realm of ' _ow, that kind of hurts, stop doing that_ ,' and far away from ' _oh, I wonder if he'd take me against the stall door_ ,' which is the only win condition in his book that matters right now.  
  
"You didn't have to come in here with me," Kyungwon explains when he eventually gives up and steps out of the stall. His trousers aren't exactly sorted but the burning in his cheeks has settled and that is the most important thing.    
  
Woondo's shoulders rise and fall as he pushes off the wall beside the row of sinks, a cross between a sheepish smile and a small pout on his lips. Kyungwon dies a little inside.  
  
"I feel partially responsible." His hand hovers near the cloth Kyungwon offers back to him, smile-pout replaced by a gentle frown as he takes in the discoloration of his beige companion. Woondo waves his hand then, motioning for Kyung to keep it. Kyung would have chuckled if Woondo's next words weren't: "These things tend to happen when I'm around you. I've gotten used to it."  
  
A handful of blissful seconds zoom past where Kyungwon allows himself to believe that Woondo is simply an observant man that never digs past the surface of anything and accepts that Kyungwon is a klutz and does not see a reason to fault him for it.  
  
He wants to believe that Woondo is incapable of putting two and two together. He wants to believe that Woondo will give him one of those good-natured smiles, wish him a good day, and leave the bathroom so Kyung can finally crumble to his knees in peace. He has no reason to think this could end any other way.  
  
The tap Woondo had opened while Kyungwon pocketed the handkerchief is closed. Water drips off his fingers, tiny droplets landing on the mirrors and the floor and Kyungwon's shirt as Woondo flicked his wrists, drying his hands.  
  
When Woondo turns away from the sink and lifts his head, their gazes lock and all of Kyungwon's foolish illusion is swiftly shattered.  
  
The look in Woondo's eyes, while fond around the edges, is almost predatory at its core. Kyungwon tries to ignore the way it goes straight down his body and reminds him of the tent he's been trying to ignore the existence of for much too long now.  
  
Woondo takes half a step closer and Kyungwon's gaze drops for a moment, landing on the other's hands. Kyungwon wonders what temperature he doused them with; are they wet and cool to touch, or warm enough to heat up Kyungwon's skin as easily as the look in his eyes is doing?  
  
Woondo seems to notice where his gaze darts off to. He smirk, like he knows every thought running through Kyung's mind, a small quirk of his lips that Kyungwon would not have noticed if he weren't engraving the image of his co-worker this close up into his skull. Kyungwon's breath hitches.  
  
"I think I scare you."  
  
Then he's gone. One step back and suddenly there are oceans between them, the cold spray of distance slapping Kyungwon in the face like a wet towel.  
  
"I'll try and do less of that in the future."  
  
  
-  
  
  
Woondo is the first to leave. He excuses himself with an easy smile, citing work he needed to get back to, and gently warns Kyungwon to be more careful in the future.  
  
Kyungwon barely remembers to nod his head and watches Woondo go with eyes the shape of saucers. When the men's bathroom door clicks shut, he stumbles back against the countertop and lets out a breath he hadn't known he was holding.  
  
There are too many questions in his head vying for attention, screaming and tumbling over each other to get it. But out of all of them, there is only one Kyungwon can cling onto:  
  
_What the fuck was that?_  
  
  
-  
  
  
Kyungwon doesn't leave the bathroom until someone else wanders in. Unwilling to face any scrutiny that might be directed at him if he was still around when his new company left his stall, Kyungwon washes his hands, tosses some water onto his face, and pretends he isn't sporting a bewildered, flagging erection as he hurries out of the facilities.  
  
Despite the rollercoaster of emotions Kyungwon had been strapped into, the outside world—that is, his office floor—has not changed much. He can hear a bit more commotion in the hallway and prays it has something to do with help arriving to fix the problem the building's been saddled with.  
  
When he gets back to his desk, Changmook, a newer hire who has taken to bothering Ryung and saying hi to Kyungwon whenever he has a spare minute or two, pops his head over the divider to share the good news being passed around the office grapevine: they might all be sent home if no headway is made in an hour.  
  
With a smile that makes Kyungwon go a little soft on the inside (it's hard to be completely unaffected by a sight so pretty), Changmook extends an invitation for food and drinks should they leave the office early. Kyungwon declines, citing a poorly constructed excuse that he rambles through, and his cheeks warm when Changmook gives him a reassuring wink—who knew those could be anything but flattering or unwanted?—and mentions there's always next time, before turning on his heel and wandering off to a different desk, presumably to find more people for his impromptu employee get together.  
  
At least he was assimilating well. If the biggest problem in Kyungwon's life was still the hypothetical scenario with life ruining intelligence gatherers, he wouldn't have a lick of worry for Changmook; the man was a chameleon. If anything, Changmook would probably charm all the spies into turning themselves in.  
  
It was unusual of him to be excited by the prospect of getting to play management approved hooky, but after his bout of 'excitement' today, Kyungwon hopes that turns out to be the case; there's no way he's going to be able to properly focus on his work with so much pent up energy fizzling under his skin.  
  
Then again, that would mean an hour of pure nothing before he could get into a cab, get home, and cry and/or moan into his pillow.  
  
Kyungwon sinks into his desk chair with a frustrated grunt. He glances down at his desk, contemplative, but ultimates decides against planting his face on the keyboard.  
  
He definitely needed more coffee.  
  
  
-  
  
  
There is—sadly? Thankfully?—no Woondo in sight when Kyungwon returns to his desk, coffee in hand with his enroute accident count back at zero.  
  
However, a bright yellow square stuck to Kyungwon's desk signed with the initials KWD takes his place. The letters are the first thing his eyes zero in on and Kyungwon isn't far from resenting the way his heart initially leaped into his throat when he reads the meat of the short note.  
  
_Was working on the following documents (underside) when the systems blinked, worried they might be lost. Mind sending copies of the originals when we're up and running again? Thanks._  
  
...  
  
Of course.  
  
He pulls the note off the surface of his desk and flips it over to find, lo and behold, a neatly compiled list of records Kyungwon had sent him earlier in the week.  
  
At least there was a cushy carpet knitted from the rest of his dead hopes and dreams for his inner romantic to land on after it was done parachuting with his heart.  
  
It's his own fault for expecting anything, really. Why wouldn't you want to make sure your coworkers were comfortable around you? Nothing romantic or even platonic about it—it was just good business sense. An open, honest working environment undisturbed by the hands of unfamiliarity and distrust was a productive one.  
  
Woondo was such a smart, dedicated worker. What admirable traits. Kyungwon needed to be more like him and less like a drooling teenage girl at an idol concert. He should be making resolutions about striving to be better, not noticing how aesthetically pleasing he finds Woondo's penmanship.  
  
He sticks the note on the frame of his monitor and tries to berate himself a little harder for feeling disappointed over this. Sharing love letters in the workplace would be childish and unprofessional, ignoring the fact that the very married manager of their department has been not-so-discreetly and unsuccessfully trying to use that method of communication to flirt with their secretary for the past three months.  
  
Precedent was not a green light. Signals could easily be misread by eager eyes and Woondo was not interested in him. The earth was round and his mood was now flatter than a pancake. These were all modern day truths.  
  
  
-  
  
  
**[ sent ]  
** Can't make it today. Getting off early but I'm going to try and get some rest

 **[ kihun ]  
** _np_

 **[ sent ]  
** Are you sure? I'll come by if you really need me too  
  
**[ kihun ]  
**_yeah. gonna watch stuff with jiyeon_

 **[ sent ]  
**...you're going to mope about your ex-girlfriend with your ex-girlfriend?  
  
**[ kihun ]  
**_gf  
__it was the call's reception breaking up at the hotel last week. she still loves me_

 **[ sent ]  
** Oh  
In that case, I'm glad you sorted that out. You two have fun. Tell her I said hi!  
  
  
-  
  
  
After three cups of coffee, fifteen minutes spent pretending he was outlining a work plan for tomorrow, and twenty-five new learned English words, all packed into an hour that crawled by slower than the last period on the final day of a school year, Kyungwon is more than ready to pack it up and go home.  
  
Changmook intercepts him before he's even gotten all the way out of his chair, asking one last time if he was sure he didn't want to spend some of the afternoon with him and the small gaggle of people he'd gotten to agree to hangout. He tries to use Ryung as bait and Kyungwon is honestly impressed Changmook managed to convince him to willingly spend time with people that Ryung, more often than not, claimed were a vast waste of his time, but Kyungwon remains steadfast in his mission to spend the rest of the day wallowing on his own.  
  
There was nothing wrong with trying to flush a crush out of his system with an orgasm and some fruit cubes; he repeats those words like a mantra as he waits for the elevator to come up.  
  
Maybe he should text his sister and subtly remind her how dangerous boys were. The more she distanced herself from them, the better. It's a life lesson Kyungwon should start to heed himself.  
  
He's got a hand in his pocket to dig for his phone when the elevator finally comes to a stop on his level. As is the norm in this building, quick steps follow closely behind Kyungwon as he walks inside; someone running to catch the elevator from who knows where. He pays them no mind, marking the ground floor as his destination before he shuffles back into the corner to unlock his phone behind the thin, invisible veil of privacy that space between the bodies of two strangers allows.    
  
When the doors close, the stranger does not linger close to the front of the elevator like Kyungwon expects, nor do they pad over to the opposite side of their moving box. Instead, they step over to him and lean back against the railing, ankles crossed along with their arms, which have a folded jacket draped over them.  
  
Most of Kyungwon's body feels paralyzed, but his eyes work just fine and are free to openly stare at the body standing close enough to his own to be considered companionable but not so close that it's uncomfortable or overly familiar.  
  
That jacket's awfully familiar, though. The stranger's not much of a stranger either.

Kyungwon swallows a mouthful of nothing. His throat feels very dry all of a sudden.  
  
"Not heading out with Changmook and the others?"  
  
He shakes his head.  
  
"I—" _was just going to jerk off to the thought of you and feel terrible about it afterwards; what are your plans for the evening?_ "I don't feel up to all the company."  
  
"That much company or any company at all?"  
  
His heart is anxious and impatient, injected again with a craving that Kyungwon wants to pretend he hasn't been trying and failing to eradicate since their last conversation.  
  
It loosens his lips. "Are you asking me out?"  
  
The first thing Kyungwon normally wants to do in situations like this is dig up a hole in the floor and dive straight into it. But something strange happens before he can get out the imaginary shovel: Woondo halts the urge. He _laughs_.  
  
Woondo laughs like he's been caught off guard and found out, like he's pleasantly surprised by a gift he had unexpectedly been given. It's a boisterous thing that Kyungwon might have compared to a thousand melodious ringing bells if he didn't make the mistake of looking up and getting distracted by the way Woondo's face lights up with it.  
  
He lifts a hand and rubs around a dry eye like he's wiping away tears that aren't there while simultaneously trying to hide half his face. The sight is endearing, painfully so. A tiny part of Kyungwon wants to kiss him just to make him stop.  
  
He's still smiling when he calms down and Kyungwon doesn't think his heart has ever been so effortlessly attacked.  
  
"You remember the bakery from a couple of weeks back?"  
  
It's a miracle Kyungwon managed more than an incoherent screech. Granted, his hesitant, squeaked 'yeah' isn't much of an improvement, but it is better than the alternative.  
  
"There's a restaurant in that area that has some experiential pasta dishes on its menu. If you're interested, we could meet outside the bakery at around 8—"  
  
"Yes."  
  
Woondo seems to take a moment to process the word that interrupted his proposal. It's nice, Kyungwon thinks, not having it be _his_ brain moving slower than it should for once.  
  
"Yes?"  
  
The elevator stops. Kyungwon thinks he might have forgotten to step out if Woondo hadn't moved forward first. Not that being trapped for all eternity in an enclosed space with Woondo would be all that terrible, to be fair.  
  
"Yes," he confirms.  
  
"Alright," Woondo smiles. Kyungwon would very much like to keep that soft, upwards curve of Woondo's mouth in his pocket. "8 it is then."  
  
  
-  
  
  
**[ ryung ]  
**_the overgrown pup said you'd be here  
__you're not  
__remind me to pummel changmook the next time we're in the middle of a large crowd_

 **[ ryung ]  
**_going out without you was a mistake, I know, I'll repent later now open the door_  
_Why the fuck aren't you home_  
  
**[ sent ]  
** Sorry! Think I'm on a date, I'll see you tomorrow!

 **[ ryung ]  
** _what fucking date  
_ _Kyungwon  
_ _you owe me the fare I paid to get here  
_ _fucking hell_


End file.
